Public Accounts Committee on June 1st, 2021

[Karen Hogan]

I'm not sure that I actually looked at the logistics of how they were distributed. Maybe Jean Goulet can add to some of that, but it really wasn't our focus. Our focus was on whether the stockpile was ready to respond and then on how the government responded, and how we can influence and adapt that going forward.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Can I request that this information come to us in writing, please? Can I request that any analysis in the audit on any of the findings in the internal documents related to the distribution come back to the committee in writing?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Absolutely.

You have received that request, and we look forward to receiving it.

We will now go to our next round of questioning, starting with Mr. Lawrence for five minutes.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan, and thank you for your continued excellent work.

As you might have suspected, based on the earlier questioning, I'm going to continue where Matthew Green left off. I think I know the answers, but I want it clarified on the record. I'm going to ask about N95 masks specifically, because it is a representative case, and it was particularly important during this crisis, as you said.

As of January 1, 2020, did the government know how many N95 masks it had?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm going to ask Jean to add some of this granular level of detail that I'm not sure I have stored in my head. I'm going to see if Jean can answer that one.

[Jean Goulet]

The agency came back to us and said, yes, they knew, but in looking at the data and doing our analysis, there was no way we could rely on the information that was provided to us by the agency.

What we can tell you is that there was a large request for N95 masks that came before bulk purchasing was implemented. I can tell you the numbers and I can tell you how many were shipped. The numbers coming in from the provinces and territories were about 3.2 million, and what was actually shipped was 130,000. This gives you the magnitude of what the needs were from provinces and the capability of the agency to reply to those needs.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you for the excellent information. I'm sorry, but just to clarify that, 130,000 N95 masks were shipped to provinces from when to when?

[Jean Goulet]

That was prior to the implementation or just after the implementation of bulk purchasing, so that's from February up until July and August.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

It was only 130,000. Again, what was the number that you said was the total amount requested?

[Jean Goulet]

It was around 3.2 million.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Wow—less than 1%, if my math quickly holds up there.

[Jean Goulet]

It's 4%.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

It's 4%? Thank you. That's why you're in the Auditor General's office and I'm just a politician. I appreciate that.

To get back to the original point, the government did not know how many N95s they had—or at least it wasn't reliable data—in the stockpile as of January 1, 2020. That's your evidence, correct?

[Jean Goulet]

Our evidence is that the information that they were provided with could not be relied upon.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

My subsequent line of questioning I think is moot, but I'll still ask it just to get it on the record.

Of those N95 masks that would have been there, did the government have any type of tracking as to how many of them had expired?

[Jean Goulet]

There was tracking, but again, this is one of the areas where we found some deficiencies, so again we could not rely on that information.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

The government really—I'll use your language—did not have reliable information to tell them how many N95s they had and whether they were expiring, and they only shipped out 130,000, or 4% of the total provincial request. Is that correct?

[Jean Goulet]

That is correct, but remember again here that the mandate of the agency is to reply to a need from the provinces that exceeds their capability. It's what we call the “surge capability”.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Okay.

The other thing I wanted to clarify is on the 130,000. It seems that this might have been how many they had, as logic indicates to me, but we don't know how many they should have had. There was no number out there as to what should have been the number of N95 masks prior to January 1, 2020. Is that correct?

[Jean Goulet]

Yes.

[Karen Hogan]

Yes, that's correct. That was one of the issues identified in the 2010 internal audit by the agency. They identified that they needed to do that assessment of what should be in the stockpile and that the assessment had not been done. The evidence we found was that it had not been done because of budget limitations, so that was why they hadn't addressed it, and then you have nothing to compare it to, right?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

No, for sure. You don't know where the threshold is. I hear you.

You've mentioned a couple of times that budgetary restrictions were a primary limiting factor in having the proper stocks of N95 masks. Were there any requests for additional funding for the stockpile from the various public services?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm going to have to turn to Jean again. I should have just let him keep going with the answers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Could we have a very short answer, Mr. Goulet?

[Jean Goulet]

We don't know if there's an exact number. Basically, what officials at the agency told us was that it was because of budget constraints.